1. Wedding

2. Wholesale

My cards are in a handful of stores in Ottawa (wholesale and consignment) — big yay! Although I still don’t feel ready for wholesale, I don’t know if I’ll ever feel ready. As I continue to develop my line of paper products, I will continue to reach out to retailers. So if you want to carry my line of greeting cards in your shop, let me know!

3. Teaching

This is where I haven’t made much, if any, progress. I have a bunch of half-written blog posts, and have taught a couple informal workshops with friends. But I haven’t intentionally pursued this avenue yet. This is on the back burner, although I really want to finish those blog posts and get that content out for you to use. I hope to find time for this in the coming months!

4. Giving back

I regularly give my time and calligraphy work for church projects. But I also want to explore setting aside money earned from my biz for charity. I also haven’t put much thought into this category. So we’ll see what happens..

5. Community

Yes! I joined a local creative meetup group and the connections have been transformational! I love online, but you really can’t beat in-person.

6. Brand & Business

Each time I post or share something, I ask myself if it aligns with what my brand stands for. I’m being more particular about what I curate. I don’t know if it is outwardly obvious, but inwardly I have more clarity.

There have been some changes in my personal life since setting these goals, so I recognize that I’ve had to pull back from some of them. And I’m okay with it. I’m still moving forward in my biz, but ultimately my family comes first.

Whether you’re knocking it out of the park with your goals, or you haven’t quite lived up to what you had hoped.. as long as you’re keeping up forward momentum, and showing up every day, then you’re doing well. Plans change and circumstances do too. I have accomplished some goals that are not listed in my original 6 goal categories, including setting up a standalone online shop and joining Snapchat (follow me at ?simplystephko!).

Show up every day to keep up forward momentum.

We’re only halfway through the year, hence the midyear followup. So I can’t wait to see what the next 6 months will bring!